“Apple just posted its 2012 Supplier Responsibility Report highlighting its efforts to audit and improve working conditions within its supply chain. As part of the report, Apple also posted a list of 156 companies currently supplying components for Apple products that make up over 97 percent of all ‘procurement expenditures for materials, manufacturing, and assembly’ of its entire product line globally,” Jordan Kahn reports for 9to5Mac.

“The list includes Toshiba Mobile display, who is currently not supplying displays for Apple products that we know of. There were rumors in May that Toshiba was working on a 4-inch retina display and also rumors last month that Apple and Toshiba are building a plant for display production, which was later debunked by the increasingly unreliable DigiTimes,” Kahn reports. “It also includes Sharp, who was recently rumored to be ruled out of iPad 3 panel production due to quality concerns but also supplies other components to Apple.”

Toshiba Mobile Display manufactures, or plans to manufacture, 3.3 inch to 4.0 inch screens. Multiple rumors last year had the forthcoming iPhone 5 at 4 inches. This report is evidence, albeit tissue-thin, that it might happen. Good news for those with bigger hands!

It isn’t, much. But you can parse its scraped-together articles for isolated facts and form your own conclusions. The same goes for other sites that traffic in rumor and supposition. MDN rounds up a lot of articles from these sources, and MDN’s got a world-class wrecking crew of commenters that conceivably could deconstruct the Voynich manuscript, let alone a cookie-crumb trail of tech specs.

I’d personally prefer to send my money to Japanese companies than the Korean Samesungs and Chinese Foxconns of the world. Japan could use the business and they know how to be both honest and innovative.